Mountain West Conference = AQ BCS?

[sd'sker]

I'm all for an 8 team playoff. To keep the BCS crowd happy, use their current formula to rank the teams. Take the top 8 and have them play in the current BCS bowls slotted for BCS games as playoff games.

that's what i like, but i wouldn't be opposed to having conference championships being a play-in, and then a few at-larges. that would put a lot of pressure on the conferences to get championships, even though they are already moving that direction.

 

[VA Husker Fan]

Hancock also said the BCS in the future would like to avoid playing its non-championship games on weekday nights because it hurts attendance.

This kills me. It doesn't have anything to do with how meaningless those games are?

 

[kansas husker]

I also like the +1 idea for the BCS, much more than a playoff system. The playoffs are great for the NFL, but I really think they would detract a lot from the fun of the bowl system in college football. The best part about bowl games is that there are numerous winners, not just one. Think about it - if Nebraska finished last season with a loss rather than a bowl win, would the hype & hope for this season be as prominent knowing there could be only one champion in the end?

What is "the fun of the bowl system?" What does that mean? There are 30-something bowls out there, about 25 of which nobody really, really cares about unless their team is playing. For the most part, a good half of those bowl games are no more compelling than any average Saturday afternoon game in late September. It's just lipstick on a pig for the most part, and frankly, I'm tired of kissing that pig.

What is compelling about these bowls:

GMAC Bowl

Sun Bowl

Liberty Bowl

papajohns.com Bowl

Insight Bowl

International Bowl

Humanitarian Bowl

Champs Sports Bowl

Emerald Bowl

Meineke Car Care Bowl

Little Caesars Bowl

Maaco Las Vegas Bowl

St. Petersburg Bowl

Outback Bowl

Hawaii Bowl

Poinsettia Bowl

New Orleans Bowl

New Mexico Bowl

If your team isn't playing in one of these bowls, is it really an "event" to watch any of them? Is it more compelling in any way to watch these bowls than any random game on any random Saturday throughout the season? Why?

The bigger question would be why the bowl would be eliminated. They already have no impact on the nc picture (just like in a playoff system). And it would still be a nice place for a team to play that deserved a psot season game but didn't quite make the playoffs

 

[sd'sker]

I also like the +1 idea for the BCS, much more than a playoff system. The playoffs are great for the NFL, but I really think they would detract a lot from the fun of the bowl system in college football. The best part about bowl games is that there are numerous winners, not just one. Think about it - if Nebraska finished last season with a loss rather than a bowl win, would the hype & hope for this season be as prominent knowing there could be only one champion in the end?

What is "the fun of the bowl system?" What does that mean? There are 30-something bowls out there, about 25 of which nobody really, really cares about unless their team is playing. For the most part, a good half of those bowl games are no more compelling than any average Saturday afternoon game in late September. It's just lipstick on a pig for the most part, and frankly, I'm tired of kissing that pig.

What is compelling about these bowls:

GMAC Bowl

Sun Bowl

Liberty Bowl

papajohns.com Bowl

Insight Bowl

International Bowl

Humanitarian Bowl

Champs Sports Bowl

Emerald Bowl

Meineke Car Care Bowl

Little Caesars Bowl

Maaco Las Vegas Bowl

St. Petersburg Bowl

Outback Bowl

Hawaii Bowl

Poinsettia Bowl

New Orleans Bowl

New Mexico Bowl

If your team isn't playing in one of these bowls, is it really an "event" to watch any of them? Is it more compelling in any way to watch these bowls than any random game on any random Saturday throughout the season? Why?

The bigger question would be why the bowl would be eliminated. They already have no impact on the nc picture (just like in a playoff system). And it would still be a nice place for a team to play that deserved a psot season game but didn't quite make the playoffs

i don't know if you have been reading this thread, but that is what i have been saying the whole time. keep the bowls, add a playoff.

 

[knapplc]

The bigger question would be why the bowl would be eliminated. They already have no impact on the nc picture (just like in a playoff system). And it would still be a nice place for a team to play that deserved a psot season game but didn't quite make the playoffs

What are they, then? Participation trophies?

I really don't have a problem with these bowl games as long as the actual factual champion is crowned on the field. It just seems like the bowl games would turn into the NIT, though.

 

[sd'sker]

The bigger question would be why the bowl would be eliminated. They already have no impact on the nc picture (just like in a playoff system). And it would still be a nice place for a team to play that deserved a psot season game but didn't quite make the playoffs

What are they, then? Participation trophies?

I really don't have a problem with these bowl games as long as the actual factual champion is crowned on the field. It just seems like the bowl games would turn into the NIT, though.

aren't those bowls already the NIT. really, all bowls are except the one your team is in. i watch a lot of the games, only because i have nothing better to do, but with a playoff, i would plan to watch every game throughout. i don't think anything would make the bowls less or more exciting. a playoff really wouldn't have much of an affect on the rest of the bowls.

 

[HUSKER 37]

First(ly?), on the original topic...

I don't have a problem with a few MWC teams playing in BCS Bowls..even for the MNC, but I still wonder about the strength of the rest of the teams in that conference allowing for their "Champion" to receive an automatic berth each and every year.

Although some could argue that same thing for a few of the present auto-qualifyers.

If those games were in some magical playoff, I wouldn't suddenly care any more about them.And I would be less likely to care about regular season matchups too..knowing that the whole season doesn't hinge on every stinkin' game.

The thought of a 4-5 loss champion makes my skin crawl.

We can take this point by point:

1. As sd'sker said, there is never going to be a 4-5 loss champion. That's an absurd argument.
   
2. Yes, you would care more about playoff games than you would about the Champ Sports bowl because you know that no team in the Champ Sports Bowl has a prayer of winning the championship, whereas every team in the quarterfinals has a shot. You're fooling yourself if you think Champ Sports Bowl > The Worst Playoff Game.
   
3. A playoff would not make regular season games any less exciting because two-loss teams can make BCS bowls right now – even three-loss teams (like Nebraska, had we beaten Texas) can make BCS bowls.
   
4. The Bowl System cheapens the regular season by boiling itself down to a popularity contest voted on by sports writers in newsrooms, rather than by teams playing on the field.
   

These pro-BCS arguments are getting easier and easier to skewer.

The 4-5 loss thing isn't really that absurd..

Happens pretty much every season in the NFL..The only few times I've actually watched the SuperBowl for more than the nifty commercials was the couple of times there was an undefeated or one-loss team playing in it.

Parity is real...good or bad, teams that used to win your "popularity contests" can't be counted on to win all their games anymore..making a playoff slightly more palletable.

I know this isn't the NFL, but 4-5 loss teams winning it all IS very probable..Every other sport with playoffs have them on a nearly constant basis.

But one of the main things that makes Division-1 Football so unique and enjoyable, is that the champion is rewarded for pretty much the entire season...Not just the team that got hot at the end.

The "best team" doesn't always win, but they usually have the best season.

 

[ESPY]

Update in today's news - automatic bid qualifications

The BCS disclosed Thursday it has three ways to measure conference strength. They are the ranking of the highest-ranked team from a conference in the final BCS standings, the final regular-season computer rankings of all the teams in a conference and the number of teams from a conference in the top 25 in the final BCS standings.

While the conference rankings the BCS uses to determine how another league can earn an automatic bid have been spelled out for years, BCS officials have been criticized by not giving details of how the formula is put together and what exactly needs to be done to qualify.

I'm thinking BCS officials don't want to explain how their subjectivity oozes into the picture.

 

[Hingle McCringleberry]

First(ly?), on the original topic...

I don't have a problem with a few MWC teams playing in BCS Bowls..even for the MNC, but I still wonder about the strength of the rest of the teams in that conference allowing for their "Champion" to receive an automatic berth each and every year.

Although some could argue that same thing for a few of the present auto-qualifyers.

If those games were in some magical playoff, I wouldn't suddenly care any more about them.And I would be less likely to care about regular season matchups too..knowing that the whole season doesn't hinge on every stinkin' game.

The thought of a 4-5 loss champion makes my skin crawl.

We can take this point by point:

1. As sd'sker said, there is never going to be a 4-5 loss champion. That's an absurd argument.
   
2. Yes, you would care more about playoff games than you would about the Champ Sports bowl because you know that no team in the Champ Sports Bowl has a prayer of winning the championship, whereas every team in the quarterfinals has a shot. You're fooling yourself if you think Champ Sports Bowl > The Worst Playoff Game.
   
3. A playoff would not make regular season games any less exciting because two-loss teams can make BCS bowls right now – even three-loss teams (like Nebraska, had we beaten Texas) can make BCS bowls.
   
4. The Bowl System cheapens the regular season by boiling itself down to a popularity contest voted on by sports writers in newsrooms, rather than by teams playing on the field.
   

These pro-BCS arguments are getting easier and easier to skewer.

The 4-5 loss thing isn't really that absurd..

Happens pretty much every season in the NFL..The only few times I've actually watched the SuperBowl for more than the nifty commercials was the couple of times there was an undefeated or one-loss team playing in it.

Parity is real...good or bad, teams that used to win your "popularity contests" can't be counted on to win all their games anymore..making a playoff slightly more palletable.

I know this isn't the NFL, but 4-5 loss teams winning it all IS very probable..Every other sport with playoffs have them on a nearly constant basis.

But one of the main things that makes Division-1 Football so unique and enjoyable, is that the champion is rewarded for pretty much the entire season...Not just the team that got hot at the end.

The "best team" doesn't always win, but they usually have the best season.

The thing that scares me is once a team is in the playoffs (say they win 8 straight), then they sand bag a couple of games. Get there top guys some rest, and pretty much turn the rest of the schedule into some spring games, boy, that would be some awesome TV there. Wonder how attendance would be for a conference championship game when one of the teams is already going to a playoff bid and the other isn't, who would you start that week. Of course we all say we would play every game, but look back to when we locked the North last year and the threads on here about sandbagging the CU game. People where serious about that. If we do anything to discount the importance of every game, then we will start to slid down the path towards the NFL. The NFL cant seem to figure out why the ratings are falling, really, well when most of your games dont matter, and all you have to do is keep even (heck you dont even need to do that), then why try. A +1 system is about the only thing you could do to keep the regular season exciting.

 

[knapplc]

The 4-5 loss thing isn't really that absurd..

Happens pretty much every season in the NFL..The only few times I've actually watched the SuperBowl for more than the nifty commercials was the couple of times there was an undefeated or one-loss team playing in it.

Parity is real...good or bad, teams that used to win your "popularity contests" can't be counted on to win all their games anymore..making a playoff slightly more palletable.

I know this isn't the NFL, but 4-5 loss teams winning it all IS very probable..Every other sport with playoffs have them on a nearly constant basis.

But one of the main things that makes Division-1 Football so unique and enjoyable, is that the champion is rewarded for pretty much the entire season...Not just the team that got hot at the end.

The "best team" doesn't always win, but they usually have the best season.

There are a myriad of reasons why teams with four losses make the NFL playoffs: greater parity, smaller league size, more games, better players overall, etc. It's simply not a comparator to college football.

Parity in college has been attempted with the scholarship limits in the 90s, and it has had an effect on the overall play of D1A football, but there are still tiers of teams out there. All 120 teams are not the same, and we can usually easily find eight or twelve or even sixteen teams to make a playoff that are a cut above the masses. But here's the thing - even in years where the lines between the last four teams that make the college playoffs and the first four who don't make it are quite blurry, it's still a better system than sportswriters voting because human guesswork will be taken out of the equation.

I've heard the "unique" argument just about every time this discussion comes up, and frankly it holds no water. "Unique" does not equal "good."

 

[CornHOLIO]

The 4-5 loss thing isn't really that absurd..

Happens pretty much every season in the NFL..The only few times I've actually watched the SuperBowl for more than the nifty commercials was the couple of times there was an undefeated or one-loss team playing in it.

Parity is real...good or bad, teams that used to win your "popularity contests" can't be counted on to win all their games anymore..making a playoff slightly more palletable.

I know this isn't the NFL, but 4-5 loss teams winning it all IS very probable..Every other sport with playoffs have them on a nearly constant basis.

But one of the main things that makes Division-1 Football so unique and enjoyable, is that the champion is rewarded for pretty much the entire season...Not just the team that got hot at the end.

The "best team" doesn't always win, but they usually have the best season.

There are a myriad of reasons why teams with four losses make the NFL playoffs: greater parity, smaller league size, more games, better players overall, etc. It's simply not a comparator to college football.

Parity in college has been attempted with the scholarship limits in the 90s, and it has had an effect on the overall play of D1A football, but there are still tiers of teams out there. All 120 teams are not the same, and we can usually easily find eight or twelve or even sixteen teams to make a playoff that are a cut above the masses. But here's the thing - even in years where the lines between the last four teams that make the college playoffs and the first four who don't make it are quite blurry, it's still a better system than sportswriters voting because human guesswork will be taken out of the equation.

I've heard the "unique" argument just about every time this discussion comes up, and frankly it holds no water. "Unique" does not equal "good."

The problem is not cruddy 4-loss teams making the playoffs..It's having them win the MNC or SB.

If your ultimate evil plan is to make the "unique" greatest thing evah into the NFL-lite, then playoffs is a great way to start.

I can't even remember who was in the SuperBowl last season without googling it.

And I'm fine with knowing we probably could've taken Alabama at the end of last season, but with the loss to ISU??? I don't think we deserved the MNC that a playoff may have given us.

 

[knapplc]

The problem is not cruddy 4-loss teams making the playoffs..It's having them win the MNC or SB.

If your ultimate evil plan is to make the "unique" greatest thing evah into the NFL-lite, then playoffs is a great way to start.

I can't even remember who was in the SuperBowl last season without googling it.

And I'm fine with knowing we probably could've taken Alabama at the end of last season, but with the loss to ISU??? I don't think we deserved the MNC that a playoff may have given us.

Except that a five-loss team hasn't been in a position to make even a 16-team playoff in the last ten years, so that concern is bunk. If you had a 16-team playoff only three times in the past ten years would you have had four-loss teams competing. If you had a 12- or 8-team playoff there were no four-loss teams eligible. So this whole argument is a red herring.

You can call it "NFL-lite" all you want. The bottom line is that every major team sport in the world, except college football, uses a tournament to determine their champion. College football uses a popularity poll. There's a reason no other major sport - and certainly not any that generate this kind of revenue - are using votes to determine their champion, and it's not because they don't want to step on the "uniqueness" of college football. It's because a method like that is foolish.

Speaking of Nebraska last season, it's irrelevant whether or not we could have beaten Alabama because we weren't eligible. 20th-ranked teams don't make a 16-team playoff, unless of course you use a popularity poll, which I suppose could have skewed itself up enough to put us in there.

 

[CornHOLIO]

The problem is not cruddy 4-loss teams making the playoffs..It's having them win the MNC or SB.

If your ultimate evil plan is to make the "unique" greatest thing evah into the NFL-lite, then playoffs is a great way to start.

I can't even remember who was in the SuperBowl last season without googling it.

And I'm fine with knowing we probably could've taken Alabama at the end of last season, but with the loss to ISU??? I don't think we deserved the MNC that a playoff may have given us.

Except that a five-loss team hasn't been in a position to make even a 16-team playoff in the last ten years, so that concern is bunk. If you had a 16-team playoff only three times in the past ten years would you have had four-loss teams competing. If you had a 12- or 8-team playoff there were no four-loss teams eligible. So this whole argument is a red herring.

You can call it "NFL-lite" all you want. The bottom line is that every major team sport in the world, except college football, uses a tournament to determine their champion. College football uses a popularity poll. There's a reason no other major sport - and certainly not any that generate this kind of revenue - are using votes to determine their champion, and it's not because they don't want to step on the "uniqueness" of college football. It's because a method like that is foolish.

Speaking of Nebraska last season, it's irrelevant whether or not we could have beaten Alabama because we weren't eligible. 20th-ranked teams don't make a 16-team playoff, unless of course you use a popularity poll, which I suppose could have skewed itself up enough to put us in there.

Gee,

We came within a second of making your mythical playoffs..And without the human "popularity" polls, there's no guarantee we would've been top 16.

You'll always run that risk with including conference championship games and automatic qualifyers (top 16 I'm guessing is what you're using).

Most fans seem to gripe when computer polls are used, and you seem to have a vendetta against using Human "popularity" polls..Should we go by just win/loss records?

 

[knapplc]

Gee,

We came within a second of making your mythical playoffs..And without the human "popularity" polls, there's no guarantee we would've been top 16.

You'll always run that risk with including conference championship games and automatic qualifyers (top 16 I'm guessing is what you're using).

Most fans seem to gripe when computer polls are used, and you seem to have a vendetta against using Human "popularity" polls..Should we go by just win/loss records?

What of the fact that we came within a second of making the playoffs? We would have earned our way there, and we would have been a three-loss team. How does that make any kind of point you've been trying to make?

And yes, I very much do have a vendetta against polls based on popularity rather than merit. I'd far rather use a formula like Jeff Sagarin's than "I feel like Notre Dame is pretty good" polls.

Yes, you will run a risk of teams like Nebraska with three losses who kind of stumble their way into the playoffs, but it's an on-the-field result, and that's far more palatable than a group of sportswriters who perceive things one way or the other.

 

[sd'sker]

Gee,

We came within a second of making your mythical playoffs..And without the human "popularity" polls, there's no guarantee we would've been top 16.

You'll always run that risk with including conference championship games and automatic qualifyers (top 16 I'm guessing is what you're using).

Most fans seem to gripe when computer polls are used, and you seem to have a vendetta against using Human "popularity" polls..Should we go by just win/loss records?

What of the fact that we came within a second of making the playoffs? We would have earned our way there, and we would have been a three-loss team. How does that make any kind of point you've been trying to make?

And yes, I very much do have a vendetta against polls based on popularity rather than merit. I'd far rather use a formula like Jeff Sagarin's than "I feel like Notre Dame is pretty good" polls.

Yes, you will run a risk of teams like Nebraska with three losses who kind of stumble their way into the playoffs, but it's an on-the-field result, and that's far more palatable than a group of sportswriters who perceive things one way or the other.

lets not forget that every other college football division has a playoff.

also, what about when NU backed into the championship in '01, that doesn't make your 'skin crawl'?

what exactly is your argument? that you don't want the best team to win the championship, but the team with the best season?

also, if your argument is hinged on the fact that you think NU could have beaten BAMA, that is a pretty weak argument, because we probably could not. in a tournament, NU's lack of depth would have been exposed after the first round. we could not have kept up the intensity we had in the UT game, for 3-4 weeks.

and the bold part is the most important part.

if a championship game is won by a 3 loss team, well that is the sole fault of the loser, at least they had the opportunity to win.

finally, not all wins and losses are the same. teams get to skirt by with easier schedules, and better teams with harder schedules go to lame bowls.